RAMALLAH, Palestine
Israel's supreme court temporarily suspended the administrative detention of jailed Palestinian activist Mohamed Allan on Wednesday after doctors treating him said he suffered brain damage as a result of going on a hunger strike.
A 31-year-old lawyer from the occupied West Bank and a reported member of Palestine’s Islamic Jihad resistance group, Allan was detained by Israeli authorities last November.
On June 18, he began a hunger strike to protest his ongoing custody under Israel’s policy of “administrative detention,” which allows suspects to be held for renewable periods without charge or trial.
Allan’s case has drawn considerable media attention and sparked demonstrations both in Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
According to Israeli press reports, 15 people were arrested on Sunday for demonstrating outside Barzilai Hospital, a facility in Israel’s southern city of Ashkelon at which Allan is being held.
